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correct moral character, and their future usefulness, success, and happiness, will be connected with the proper observance of this day. I could show them, to their perfect satisfaction, that the temptations which are spread out to beguile the unwary, are designed by cunning, unprincipled, and avaricious men for them. I could satisfy them that when they go forth from their father's dwellings, and from the sanctuary this day, under the influence of strong desires for pleasure and amusement, they are exposed to temptations where no young man is safe, and that beyond the eye of a father and a mother they may be hurried on to excesses which they would have been shocked to have anticipated. For be it remembered that no young man leaves his father's dwelling, and devotes this day to amusement and revelry, without flying in the face of an explicit command of the Most High. He tramples beneath his feet one of the solemn mandates that were given amidst flames and thunders on Mount Sinai-and when one command of God is basely and contemptuously trod beneath his feet the other nine will soon cease to be regarded. Be it remembered too, that the laws which God has ordained tend only to promote human virtue and happiness. Go to the penitentiary, and walk along from cell to cell, and enquire of the inmates when their career of guilt commenced. Go and converse in his sober moments with the drunkard, and ask him when he first trod that downward way, and the answer would be, in a majority of cases, on the Sabbath-day. I venture here a remark-though with not entire certainty of its correctness. It is, that in this country more young men commence the habits of drinking on the Sabbath than on any other day in the week. They are at leisure. They band together. They fill up the long lines of packed vehicles that on that day lead out of our cities in every direction. At the end of each one of those brief journies, and at as many places on the way as they can be induced to pause at, a kind and indulgent public has placed a dram shop, under the name of a tavern, and the Sabbath is their harvest-time, and were it not for the Sabbath they could not be sustained a month. There, many a young man in thoughtlessness commences a career which terminates in breaking a mother's heart, and in the early wreck of

all the hopes of a family, and in the extinction of their peace as they weep over a drunkard's grave.

III. A third reason why this subject demands the attention of Christians in a special manner now is, that there is a state of things in this land that is tending to obliterate the Sabbath altogether.

The events to which I refer are too well known to make it necessary to dwell particularly on them. In every direction the mail is carried, and the example of the violation of the day is thus set by national authority. Every post-office is required by law to be kept open, and a public invitation is thus given to obtain the political and commercial intelligence, and to divert the mind from the sacred duties of the day by the reference to the cares of this life. Some years since the voice of respectful entreaty and petition was addressed to the National Legislature by some thousands of the best citizens in the land; -and the sacred right of petition was met with contempt and sarcasm. In every part of our land, also, the facilities for intercommunication have been augmented to an extent that excites the surprise of the world. By canals and rail-roads distant portions of our country have been brought together, and the land trembles as the car of commerce rolls on, and the long lines of majestic improvements are crowded with the results of our toil, and with a travelling community. Against these national improvements, assuredly, the language of complaint is not to be urged. In many respects they are the glory of our land; and they should be sources of gratitude to God who has thus signally blessed our country. But can any one be ignorant that each canal and rail-road furnishes increased facility for Sabbath-violation, and that they are fast tending to blot it from the land? Where in these public conveyances is the Sabbath regarded? Where is the railroad car that is arrested by the return of this day? Is it not known that these vehicles, and particularly in the neighborhood of our cities, are crowded with a denser throng on this day than on any other day in the seven? Had it been the purpose of the people of this land to abolish the Sabbath altogether, and to furnish the most rapid and extended means of its entire obliteration, it

would have been impossible to have devised a more certain and effectual way than that which is now employed.

In the mean time there is an augmenting desire for motion in this land. The population is becoming migratory; and few pause-whether Christians or not-to rest on the Sabbath. The merchant hastens on his way to the commercial emporium-as if the saving of a day for worldly business were of more value than the observance of the laws of God; the legislator pursues his journey to the capitol-as if anxious to exhibit a specimen of breaking the laws of God while he goes to make laws for man; the party of pleasure urge on their way to a watering-place-determined to annihilate time and space, as if the affairs of the world depended on their being there an hour earlier; our sons in the distant west are travelling at the same time beyond the sound of the Sabbathbell, and the memory of the sanctuary to which it once called them as if it were a virtue to forget all the sacred scenes where the calm light of a Sabbath-morning visited their souls; and the idle, the dissipated, the profane, the atheist, the Christian, the clergyman, in these public vehicles, pursue the business of gain, or pleasure, or convenience, or ambition-as if there were special merit in forgetting all the usual distinctions of society, and each and all were showing how they can most effectually disregard the obligations of this day. For one man in the community at large who will conscientiously stop on his journey to keep holy the Sabbath-day, there are probably ten who will be at special pains to violate it, either by commencing a journey on that day, or by making it the occasion of an excursion of pleasure. In the high places of the land too there is an increasing laxness of principle on this subject. During the times that tried men's souls in the war of Independence, our fathers would have been alarmed had the ordinary business of legislation been pursued on the Sabbath, and the voice of indignant remonstrance would have been heard throughout the land. Yet nothing has been more common of late years than for the National Legislature, after wasting months in needless and profitless debate, to close their labors on the Sabbath-and amidst such scenes of disorder as to be a disgrace to themselves and the nation on any day.

It is not easy for men in any situation to cast off respect for the laws of God and at the same time maintain a character for sober virtue and order; and in legislatures as elsewhere a disregard for God's laws is but the beginning of evil. Yet the nation has not been alarmed. A few feeble voices from the press have been heard, but they have died away; and the nation seems resolved to acquiesce in the insult put upon the religious sentiments of the great body of the people of the land, and in the disregard of the nation in its highest functions for the Sabbath of the Lord.

I will close by repeating a remark already made. It is this. The warfare which Christianity is to wage in this land is here. The opposition to religion is here. The Sabbath has more enemies in this land than the Lord's Supper; than baptism; than the Bible; than all the other institutions of religion put together. At the same time it is more difficult to meet the enemy here than any where else for we come in conflict not with argument -but with interest, and pleasure, and the love of indulgence, and of gain. The conflict is to rage here. The wish of the atheist, the infidel, the man of vice, is to blot out the Sabbath. The attempt will not be made here to destroy Christianity by persecution, for that has been often tried, and has always failed. It is to see whether the Sabbath can be obliterated from the memory of man; and if it can be done it will be done. If this day, with its sacred institutions, can be blotted out, the victory will be won. Infidelity will achieve what the faggot and the stake, the force of argument and the caustic severity of sarcasm and ridicule have never been able to accomplish. And it is just now a question for the good people of this land to determine for themselves whether they shall abandon the day, or make an effort to save it; whether the virtuous and the pious shall yield the victory without a struggle, or whether they shall combine their efforts, and address the reason and conscience of their fellow-citizens and speak to them of our hallowed institutions, and of the rapid corruption of the public morals; whether they shall remind them of what the Sabbath has done for us in better times, and attempt to bring back the nation to the observance of an institu

tion that would diffuse intelligence, and soberness, and industry, and salvation all over the land; or whether disheartened by the difficulties in the case, and overpowered by numbers, they shall give it up in despair. On the position which each individual takes on these questions, more may depend than on any other single step in his life; on his course in regard to the Sabbath will depend much of the peace or the sorrow of the bed of death.

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